Data Visualization Tools and Technologies

Historical Visualizations - Napoleon's March to Moscow

Charles Minard was a pioneer of the use of graphics in engineering and statistics.

Minard is most well known for his cartographic depiction of numerical data on a map of Napoleon's disastrous losses suffered during the Russian campaign of 1812. The illustration depicts Napoleon's army departing the Polish-Russian border. A thick band illustrates the size of his army at specific geographic points during their advance and retreat. It displays six types of data in two dimensions: the number of Napoleon's troops; the distance traveled; temperature; latitude and longitude; direction of travel; and location relative to specific dates.

In the year 1812, Napoleon marched to Moscow in order to conquer the city. 98% of his soldiers died. Fifty years later, while his country yearned for their former Imperial glory, the Parisian engineer Charles Minard chose to remind his country of the horrors of war with data. The simple but fascinating temperature line below the viz shows how cold ultimately defeated Napoleon’s army.

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